Advertising pundits propound the theory that the first rule of good advertising is: noticeability. It makes sense – if your ad does not grab attention it has failed the test and all the money behind it is a huge waste. Unfortunately, a majority of the advertising is of this nature – medioicre and passing by like a ship in the dark. Joining this bandwagon is the new ‘surround’ work from Colgate Max Fresh. The promise of fresh breath that attracts is as old as toothpaste. The difference will happen in the execution that is refreshing and attention-grabbing. The TVC is neither of these – it shows a female cop (Bruna Abdullah) stopping a guy for breath analysis and flipping for him thanks to his fresh breath. Yawn.
To add insult to injury is the web work. It has the mandatory wallpapers (why would anyone put a wallpaper of Colgate on their desktop, beats me), product information and a Max makeover. They also run a contest, where the prize is a date with the model. Great.
What does one have to do? One has to view the TVC and tell them ‘what happens next?’. Given that the TVC itself scoreshigh on the ‘bore-o-meter’ what incentive does the viewer have to figure out what happens next? I would say, ‘I switched off’ is what happens next.
Unless the TVC is edge of the seat stuff that is compelling and engaging, why bother with this kind of stuff. Smacks of ‘we need a token presence on the web – bring on a microsite’. The competition for ‘attention’ on the web is different – there are far more engaging things happening on the web for a young adult (the likely target audience) for him to download Colgate wallpapers. Max Fresh, minimum impact. What say?
2 Comments
What rubbish. Actually, I have some more eloquent words to use as adjectives… but with you being VP of Ulka et al thought I’d stick to “rubbish”.
@Hecklar, most welcome to use any adjectives…